


Heaven can wait, we're only watching the skies

by JuliaBaggins, KittyHawke



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: And in the ending it gets really soft, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Joe gets hurt pretty bad, M/M, Mission Gone Wrong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:35:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26011966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JuliaBaggins/pseuds/JuliaBaggins, https://archiveofourown.org/users/KittyHawke/pseuds/KittyHawke
Summary: A mission goes wrong, and Nicky is faced with a terrible decision to make...“Please, what can I do?”For a moment, Joe was silent, just his heavy breathing audible, and then, he locked his eyes with Nicky’s, as if he wanted to stare right into his soul.“Kill me.””What?!?”, Nicky nearly shouted, and he was sure that he must have misheard. Or, he wished that he was, because Joe’s eyes told him that his love asked him exactly what he had understood. Only that this couldn’t be.“Please”
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 33
Kudos: 316





	Heaven can wait, we're only watching the skies

**Author's Note:**

> We've known each other for a long time already from another fandom but this here is our very first work together; we hope you'll enjoy it! 😊

Hostage missions were generally simple. A great number of kidnappers, traffickers and terrorists kept their victims in a single room in order to control them better, which often meant that rescuing them was an in-and-out job. Sometimes Nicky didn’t even need to be in the building. If there were a small number of guards or they weren’t too far apart, he could snipe them from outside and let the others retrieve the hostages without a fight. Those were good jobs.

This job was definitely more complicated than the norm. A terrorist cell had managed to infiltrate a hotel and had taken the entire fifteenth floor hostage, separating the people between various rooms to ensure that the police couldn’t breach one without ensuring the deaths of everyone else. After some failed negotiations and the realisation that they couldn’t guarantee the safety of more than two hostages, they had called Copley who then had called the Guard.

Nile had taken care of the single terrorist who was guarding the stairwells and lift, employing the ‘playing dead’ routine that she’d pioneered at Merrick. (It was called London ’19 now. He was proud of his little sister, so new to the team and having already created a new battle strategy.) Joe was positioned to do Sao Paulo ’34 on the negotiation room, the one place where they knew hostages could be found, and Nicky had the simplest part of the whole infiltration. He and Andy cleared the stairwells on the way up to ensure a smooth exit for the hostages, before he handed over to Nile, who seemed relieved to be moved off the killing team.

The signal was Joe opening the door of the negotiation room, smeared with blood, and sending the two hostages over to Nile. She guided them to the stairwell and Nicky moved to the next room, kicking down the door, clearing it quickly. Empty. The next one revealed two terrorists, four hostages. He fired quickly with the silencer on and dispatched them with a knife, and urged the terrified people to go to Andy.

It was a jerky, terrifying race up the corridor. Every door broken and shot fired was another moment when the remaining terrorists could realise time was running out and turn on their hostages. Every empty room meant minutes wasted and Nicky loathed these men for their tricks. Joe was slightly ahead of him, three rooms from the end of the corridor on his side, while Nicky still had five to go.

He broke yet another lock and ran into another room, saw two people tied to a radiator and one man standing over them with a gun in his hands. One shot through the neck and the man collapsed to his knees, pressing a hand to his throat as blood seeped through his fingers, before falling at the feet of his hostages. Naturally they did not take this well and started screaming in horror. Nicky pulled the body away and knelt before them, cutting at their binds and desperately trying to calm them in the few seconds he had available.

“Shhh, it’s okay. You must stay quiet. We are here to rescue you.”

They were hyperventilating with panic, but at least they weren’t screaming anymore. Nicky managed to free one who immediately climbed to her feet, scrambling for the door.

“Any others?” he asked the second.

An enormous explosion suddenly shattered the room, knocking Nicky sideways and causing the hostages to start shrieking again. He sat up, seeing that the windows were destroyed and part of the wall had collapsed. Fortunately the plasterboard had barely missed the first hostage, who lay crying on the floor. Nicky moved even before his ears had stopped ringing, freed the second girl as quickly as possible, and helped her get to her feet. He did the same for the other hostage and urged them to take cover behind the door.

“Stay here until I tell you. I will be back” he promised. They nodded and he put his head into the corridor.

It had been gutted. The centre of the explosion was diagonal of him and there was simply a crater where the room used to be. The walls on either side were scorched black and the acrid smell of smoke was everywhere. He waited, knowing it would bring any remaining rats out of their nest, and sure enough a door at the very end of the corridor opened. Another man in a bulletproof vest appeared through the smoke and a bullet had gone through his brain before he knew that he wasn’t alone.

“Go,” Nicky ordered. “Stairwell to the right. My friends will help.”

They rushed past him and he stepped out to cover them as they ran. No new threats emerged. 

“Okay?” Nicky called.

“Fine!” Andy called back.

“All good” Nile agreed.

“Joe?“

There was no answer and he felt a coil of fear twisting in his gut. He moved forward quickly, stepped over the body and found a group of five huddled in the last room.

“You have been rescued. Come on, end of the corridor” he urged, herding them out. The room across the way had been blown open and proved to be empty. That meant all the hostages were out. 

He ran back to the demolished room and climbed through the hole where the wall used to be, looking around anxiously.

“Joe?”

This time he got a pained moan for an answer and rushed towards it. Joe was lying in a pool of blood and glass. His face was screwed up in pain and he was mumbling under his breath. He wasn’t dead. Thank God he wasn’t dead.

Nicky ran forward and dropped to his knees next to his love, feeling the blood through his trousers‘ thin fabric. Green eyes frantically took in Joe’s injuries, or what was visible of them – his face and arms showed a few cuts that were already healing, probably caused by splinters of glass, and his ankle might be broken, or at least cracked, but nothing that Nicky saw could explain the amount of blood that Joe seemed to have lost, or how much pain he was in. Nicky’s hands hesitated above Joe’s chest, not sure if it was safe to touch, or if he would cause his love even more pain with that.

„Nicolò”, Joe whispered, and that one word was spoken so desperately, Nicky couldn’t resist anymore.

With a featherlight touch, Nicky placed his fingers on Joe’s cheek, and something painful seized in his chest when he felt that it was wet with tears.

“Where does it hurt?”

“Everywhere”, Joe tried to joke, but it fell flat since Nicky could see that he wasn’t lying.

Joe’s hand weakly moved around on the floor, as if he wanted to raise it but couldn’t, and so Nicky quickly grabbed it, held it, linked their fingers together. _I’ve got you, I’m here, you’re not alone_ was what his touch was supposed to say, and with a look in Joe’s dark eyes, he knew that he was understood. Nicky raised their hands, wanted to press a kiss to Joe’s knuckles, but without warning, a flinch ran through Joe’s body, and he gasped in pain. With tears burning in his eyes, Nicky oh so carefully lowered his beloved’s fingers back to the ground, and then leaned close, talking softly to him in Arabic.

“My love, forgive me, I didn’t want to cause you any more pain. Please, what can I do?”

For a moment, Joe was silent, just his heavy breathing audible, and then, he locked his eyes with Nicky’s, as if he wanted to stare right into his soul.

“Kill me.”

 _”What?!?”_ , Nicky nearly shouted, and he was sure that he must have misheard. Or, he wished that he was, because Joe’s eyes told him that his love asked him exactly what he had understood. Only that this couldn’t be.

“Please”, Joe switched to Italian, and his voice was nothing but a pained whisper, “I think I broke my spine when the explosion hit me. I, I can’t feel my legs, and my back, it _hurts_ , fuck, it hurts so much.” 

“Hayati-“, and all other words left Nicolò, faced with the lines that the excruciating pain he was in carved into Joe’s face, into Joe’s face that he wished could be happy and laughing at all times.

“It won’t kill me, I can feel that it won’t, and-“, Joe had to stop, tried to take a deep breath that came out too shallow, and new tears formed in his eyes, “I know I’m asking too much, tesoro, but, it would make things so much easier. For both of us.”

“How could hurting you ever make anything easier for me?”, and Nicky only became aware of how he was crying when he felt the tears running down his cheeks.

“I can’t walk anymore. And we haven’t got the time to wait, you know how long this kind of injury can take to heal. You-”

“I could carry you-”

“I know that you would, Nico. But it would just hurt me more.”

Nicky sighed shakily, hating those words to be true. They had carried each other out of a lot of terrible situations in the past centuries, and some aspects of that never got easier. He remembered one time, in the 18th century, when Joe’s leg had been ripped to shreds and Nicky carried him through an open field, running, dodging bullets on his way, and every vibration of his movements that Nicky couldn’t help transferring onto Joe had caused his love to cry out in pain. Once they had made it to safety, Joe’s leg had healed, but Nicolò’s heart took way longer to recover from that, his brain to not torture him with nightmares filled with Joe’s screams anymore.

To repeat something like that, Nicky would hate it. But, killing Joe, ending his life… his very being screamed in protest at the idea. What once had been his biggest goal, something he even believed to be a divine mission sent to him, had turned into something he knew he’d hate himself for for a long time. 

“I can’t”, Nicky whispered, and Joe smiled an oh so gentle smile at him.

“You can, habibi, I know that you can. It’s alright, I’m asking you to. And, I’ll come back to you. I promise, I won’t leave you”, and with a lot of effort, the pain turning his face into a grimace, he raised his arm, to be able to gently wipe the tears off Nicky’s cheek.

Nicky just shook his head, but deep inside, he knew. Knew that he couldn’t say No to anything that those eyes did ask him, no matter how bad it hurt.

“Plus, it’s not as if you hadn’t done this before”, Joe then added with a wink, and Nicky choked on a sob.

“This isn’t funny.”

“I know”, and the sadness in Joe’s eyes told Nicky that his love knew how much he asked of him, “Please.”

And with that, Joe’s hand grabbed Nicky’s hair, yanked him down to meet his lips in a desperate kiss. Nicky melted into it, and he could taste the blood inside Joe’s mouth, the tension that his body held, how his chest shook with pain.

“I’m so sorry”, Nicky whispered in Arabic, and with that, got his gun out of the back of his pants, and pressed it against Joe’s heart, closing his eyes while doing so.

“Ti amerò per sempre”, and Joe’s voice left no doubt about how he meant every word.

“Ti amo anch’io.”

And Nicky pressed the trigger.

The gunshot rang loudly in the room while Nicky collapsed on Joe’s bloody chest, praying to the Lord above for the most precious heart he ever had met to start beating again.

_One second, two seconds, three seconds_

Every second seemed to drag into minutes. He wasn’t sure if he was even counting right. He lifted his head to look at Joe and had to turn away, unable to bear the sight of those blank eyes. He had done that. He had killed him.

“Nicky?”

Nile appeared in the doorway, gun raised, and then lowered it when she saw the scene. 

“What happened?” she asked, coming towards them.

“The explosion…” he said quietly, barely able to force words through his tears. 

There was a flash of terror in her eyes as she looked from him to Joe, and placed a shaky hand on his shoulder.

“Nicky…Everyone’s out. We have to go.”

He nodded, but didn’t move. 

_Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen_

Joe came alive with a gasp and Nicky too felt as if air had finally made its way back into his lungs.

“Yusuf…”

He leaned over him and Joe’s eyes found him, his hand lifting to grip Nicky’s arm. “I’m okay,” he said quickly. “I’m okay.”

Nicky felt a sob crawl up his throat and fell upon Joe’s chest again, holding fistfuls of his clothes. Joe sat up with him and wrapped him up in a warm embrace, letting Nicky sob into his shoulder.

“Oh, my love, I’m so sorry,” he murmured, cradling Nicky’s head and gently running his fingers through his hair. “Thank you. Thank for being strong enough.”

“Joe, you okay?” Andy’s voice asked. Nicky felt him nod.

“Good as new, boss” he answered.

“Sorry, but there are swarms of people out there and we need to be gone” she said. Her tone was as no-nonsense as ever, but there was an undercurrent of sympathy that only those who knew her well could detect.

Joe tried to move back and Nicky childishly clung on, desperate not to be separated even by a few inches. He found himself looking directly into the face he adored, its eyes bright and full of life once more, as they should be. Warm hands held his cheeks.

“You did the right thing, my love. It’s okay.”

Nicky didn’t know how to respond – it was okay, because Joe was alive; it wasn’t okay, because Nicky had killed him – so he just stared back with tears streaking down his face. Joe carefully wiped them away and kissed his forehead.

“We can talk about it later” he promised.

To this, Nicky nodded his agreement, and let Joe take his hand and lift him to his feet. Andy and Nile were ready to move, carrying the body of the dead terrorist in to replace Joe, and then they made their way out via the laundry room and the parking garage.

The getaway car was parked in an abandoned lot at the back of the hotel. Andy took over the lead from Nile as they approached, taking the key fob out of her pocket. Nile’s steps slowed and she looked back at Joe and Nicky, almost pleading. Nicky shook his head at her. Joe needed to rest and he needed to be beside him with the constant reminder that he was alive and safe. If that meant submitting to the nauseating thrill-ride of Andy’s driving, so be it. Nile sighed, resigned to her fate, and climbed into the front passenger seat.

As soon as they were safely inside the car, Nicky felt all the energy leave him and leaned heavily against Joe. Soft fingers began running through his hair. Under normal circumstances that would relax him almost at once, but today he was barely aware of anything happening around him, gazing unseeingly at Joe’s ankles as memories danced before his eyes.

He saw Joe lying on the ground under him – his hair long, beard tangled and wearing armour – trying to crawl away as Nicky brought the point of a sword down on him again and again.

“Why won’t you die?” he yelled, stabbing with every word. “Why won’t you die?”

“Nicky?”

He flinched and blinked, the sand turning to the back of a car seat, and looked up at Joe. Joe with shorter curls and a neatly trimmed beard and a blood-soaked sweatshirt. Had that even happened? He wasn’t sure if that was a real memory or an amalgamation of several.

“You looked like you were miles away” Joe said.

 _Centuries away_ , Nicky wanted to say.

“I didn’t think I’d be capable of doing that” he finally whispered.

“You spared me from suffering,” Joe said. “Please don’t feel guilty. I’m grateful to you.”

Nicky sighed and wrapped an arm around his middle, shifting so that his head lay directly on Joe’s chest. He could feel the slight vibration of Joe’s heart from this position and focused on it, listening to those steady beats.

It took them about an hour to get to the nearest safe house, and after the events of the day, Joe even managed to snooze off during the last minutes of the journey, not even Andy’s driving style enough to battle the exhaustion he felt. Once the car stopped, Nicky woke him up with featherlight caresses to his hair, they then quickly checked the house and as soon as they were assured that all was safe, Joe wished the ladies a good night. Nile offered an uplifting smile while understanding glistened in Andy’s eyes, and Joe waved at both of them before taking Nicky’s hand in his and leading him to the upstairs bedroom. 

The heavy wooden door closed behind them and Joe wrapped his arms around Nicky, burying his face in his hair. But once he started kissing down Nicky’s neck, Joe felt the Italian freeze underneath his touches, and immediately stopped. Nicky wouldn’t meet his eyes, and Joe swallowed around the anxious feeling in his throat. 

“Shower?”, he asked, winking at Nicky and hoping that this would lighten his love’s mood.

“Yeah”, Nicky still didn’t look at him, “You should go first.”

And that was too much. Joe sighed, deeply, before sitting down on the bed, tugging at Nicky’s arm so he sat down next to him. That he did, but his eyes stayed fixed on his own hands, which were clasped together in his lap as if he was praying.

 _“Nicolò”_ , Joe said in a soft whisper, and he knew that his love would understand what he was asking with that.

“I’m sorry”, Nicky whispered, slipping into Italian without noticing it, “I just, I can’t help but-”

“Be angry at me?”

“What?”, and finally, wide green eyes met Joe’s, confusion shining in them.

“It’s okay, if you’re angry at me that is. I know how much I asked of you there, tesoro, and-”, he couldn’t finish that sentence, since Nicky leaned forward, slamming his lips into Joe’s in a desperate kiss.

“You think I’m upset at you?”, he asked, their foreheads leaning against each other.

“I wouldn’t blame you for it.”

“Yusuf”, Nicky’s lips pressed a quick kiss to Joe’s forehead, “My sweet, wonderful Yusuf, I’m not angry at you, _of course_ I’m not.”

Joe leaned into Nicky’s touch, then softly buried his hands in Nicky’s hair, before whispering in the best Old Genoese he could speak:

“Everything is fine.”

“But, what if it would have worked?”, and the pain in Nicky’s voice hurt him somewhere deep in his heart.

“It.. did work though? You saved me from that terrible pain, I came back, we could get out of there. It worked”, Joe tried to reassure.

Nicky chuckled, but there was no joy in it. “You know what I mean.”

“Damn. I know Nicky, I know. But.. that didn't happen. I came back. I'll always come back to you, tesoro.”

“What if-”

“No. Nicolò, baby, no. Don't let your mind go there. I came back, it's all fine. But, listen. Even if I wouldn't have. I'd have died knowing that you love me. You hear me? _I love you_ , I love you more than probably anyone has been loved in the history of this world, and you did help me there. You saved me. Just like you've been doing for nearly a millennium.”

Tears glistened in Nicky’s eyes, but now, those weren’t born only from pain.

“My dearest romantic”, and his smile was small, but it didn’t seem forced.

Joe got lost in the beauty of that smile for a moment, and then Nicky continued to speak.

“I, I can’t do that again. Please, try to be careful, I-”, and once again, Joe understood the words that weren’t there.

“I will be careful, hayati. And I know that I’ll have the best bodyguard one could ask for on our next few missions, won’t I?”

Nicky cast his eyes down, but the smile still played around his lips.

“I know that you’ll take care of me, Nicolò. You always do.”

And with that, the smile wavered. Nicky looked back into Joe’s eyes, and his own seemed to be drowning in the day’s pain.

“Joe.. today you suffered terribly in an explosion, you were in so much pain. I didn’t exactly take care of you. Instead of that, I, amore, I shot you right into your heart”, he whispered the words as if he couldn’t quite believe them himself.

“You stole my heart a long time ago; it has been yours way longer than it was mine.”

“I'm trying to make a point here, you-” 

“I know you are, bello mio. It's a stupid point though. Because _you did nothing wrong there_. And, if it makes you feel better, remember how I once carved out half your inner organs with a knife that wasn't even sharp? And you hadn't asked me for that.”

“Oh shut up, that was different!”, but despite his words, Nicky chuckled.

“Yes. It was”, Joe’s voice turned serious, “Because back then, I thought that what I was doing was the right thing to do. I thought putting out the light in your eyes was what Allah wanted me to do, what he kept me around for. While by now, I know that it's the absolute opposite. For both of us. It's all in the past. We've killed each other more often than I can count, and it's over. And, what counts, we're still together. Where we belong.”

“Hmmm we do. And, you're right, I know that you are, habibi. It's just, I hate seeing you hurt. And hurting you myself, that hurts more than you gutting me with that sorry excuse of a knife. It reminds me too much of the past. I know it’s different now, but, I haven’t hurt you since then and it.. it brings back the memories.”

“I know sweetheart, I know. Come here.”

Joe grabbed Nicky’s hand, to place it above his own heart.

“Here, see? Still beating, all for you.”

“I love you.”

“You’re my everything”, Joe replied, looking at Nicky out of the most loving eyes, “I’ve loved you for all the centuries together that Allah did bless us with, and I’ll love you still with my last breath.”

“Which we’ll take together”, Nicky stated, absolute conviction in his words.

“We will. Of course we will. You’re mine and I’m yours, and not even death could part us.”

For a moment, Nicky just smiled, and then he stood up, holding out his hand.

“Come on love, we should take a shower, and then sleep.”

Joe took his hand, let Nicky lead him to the shower, sighed softly when the Italian washed his hair, and kept a constant whisper of endearments when Nicky pressed a kiss to his chest, right where he had shot him just hours earlier.

And for once in a decade, they slept differently from usual. Joe, dressed in one of Nicky’s hoodies, his hair still a bit wet from the shower, laid down on the bed and then opened both of his arms, inviting Nicky into them. The Italian fit himself in there, letting himself be cradled against Joe’s chest, with gentle hands in his hair and his head resting safely on Joe's chest, his ear right above Joe's calm heartbeat.

It helped against the horrors of the day, to be held like this. Just like the little kisses that Joe pressed to his forehead, his hair, his nose did help; just like the soft whispers of “Thank you” and “I love you” and “You were so strong for me today, tesoro” did help.

Joe noticed the moment in which Nicky fell asleep, how his breath deepened while his body relaxed some more, and he smiled into his love’s hair, before allowing his own exhaustion to take over. And to their own pleasant surprise, none of them got plagued by nightmares that night. Joe dreamt of his favourite restaurant in India, promising himself to take his family there soon – to see how Nicky would try to hide that the food he ordered actually was too spicy for him, to witness Andy enjoy every desert on the menu, and to introduce Nile to his favourite dishes. 

Nicky’s dreams therewhile were intertwined with memories of a time long gone, of two travellers in the dessert, of a campfire being reflected in dark, hungry eyes, and of lips that tasted of home, of freedom, of the salvation he had hoped to find when starting his journey to the Holy Land. Only that he hadn’t expected to find all of this in the arms of an enemy, who soon would mean more to Nicolò than his own life.

Andy stepped into their room in the early morning, and usually, she would have woken them up, to have breakfast together and then talk about what they would do next. But when she looked through the carefully opened door and saw how Nicky’s face was hidden in Joe’s chest, the protective way in which Joe held him, she understood. And with a soft smile, she turned around, closing the door again.

Nicky and Joe joined her and Nile a few hours later, walking into the living room hand in hand, and Andy knew that they were alright. Not that she’d have doubted it, not at all – she knew how deeply they loved each other, knew it all too well, and that a love like this could be shaken by nothing.

“Good morning”, Andy greeted them, despite the morning having passed a while ago already.

“Morning, boss”, Nicky smiled at her, “What do you think about a little trip to India?”

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this story, please be so kind to leave us a comment! ❤️
> 
> Fanfic title is from the song "Forever Young" by Alphaville 🎵


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